Pulling Back the Reins
by derrx004
Summary: Johnny learns to ride a horse.


Pulling Back the Reins

By Doc

(Follows _Risk_. Johnny is sixteen. There are some references that make more sense if you've read _Risk_, but you can still get the gist of this one without it.)

The chestnut horse Johnny bought with the money earned for killing Corporal Jara wasn't much of a horse, but then he wasn't much of a horseman. His vision of riding tall in the saddle into the next town was great…except all he knew about horses was how to take care of them. He'd worked in liveries, knew how to feed them, clean out their feet, pick up their shit, and tack them up for other people. He'd only ever ridden once or twice until he climbed up on this one, to ride out of Prieto.

When the trail was clear on the way out of town, the horse walked just fine. After a while, when the going got rocky, the horse started wandering to the left. Johnny moved his hand to the right to lay the rein against its neck and the horse straightened out. They did that a few times with the horse going one way or the other until Johnny got a sinking feeling the horse was testing him. He didn't think he was getting a good score.

Then the gelding spooked in the middle of nowhere, at nothing. Johnny was glad there was no one around to see them, because this wasn't just a quick shy. This was a horse disappearing from underneath him, sinking down, jumping up and sideways. Once it had all four feet on the ground it took off for parts unknown with Johnny helpless in the saddle. Nothing he did even slowed it down. The closest he could come to guiding the damn thing was to pull hard on one rein until he had the horse's nose almost touching his knee.

Then it started crow hopping on stiff front legs, tossing Johnny up and down. Somehow he stayed on, until after a bone jarring few minutes the horse quit fighting him.

No, that wasn't quite right. After a bit the horse just quit moving.

Johnny clucked. Nothing. Kicked. Nothing. He slapped it hard with the ends of the reins. Nothing. He threw his hands forward, kicking so hard his legs came off the saddle, kissing the air like an idiot. The horse did nothing.

Cursing a blue streak, Johnny got off and found himself a stick, got back on, and switched that horse's butt with it. Nothing.

In the end he got off, grabbed his bag off the saddle, and stomped away angrier than he'd been in his life. Damn horse could stand there and starve for all he cared.

And the horse followed him, meek as a lamb.

So Johnny Madrid, gunfighter, came into a new town with a horse all right – but the gunfighter was on foot, leading a horse he swore had a big grin on its face.

It irked him to have to pay to stable the worthless animal, but he needed a meal and a good nights' sleep, so he left it at the livery without so much as a pat on the neck.

Next morning he bought himself some spurs and a quirt. It was time to teach that caballo a lesson.

The horse took the road out of town with no problem. About a mile out it started wandering to one side; Johnny reined it back. After a few minutes the horse stopped, and Johnny tapped him with the spurs. The horse's head shot up and it skipped ahead a few steps before stopping again. Johnny smacked the quirt on the horse's shoulder; nothing happened. He reached back to strap it hard on its butt, and it humped its back and kicked out its back legs.

With every strike of the quirt and jab of the spurs, Johnny got madder and madder. Damn it all, he was a big shot hired gun now, with a killing to his name and a reputation to maintain. He whipped the horse again and at the same time he punched it as hard as he could with the spurs. The horse grunted and squealed at the same time, and then the damn thing set to bucking. It kept bucking while Johnny tried to pull its head up, but he couldn't. After three bucks with a corkscrew in the middle, Johnny came off.

The fall knocked the wind out of him. He lay on the ground like a fish out of water; once he could breathe he damn near cried as he watched the horse galloping away for parts unknown. The walk back to town was humiliating, and gave him way too much time to remember what Jara's face looked like after he shot him in the eye. Nope, not gonna think about that. If not for that job, he'd never have gotten enough money to buy his horse.

Be careful what you wish for, Johnny boy.

Just like when the horse ran away in Prieto, he found it standing by the door of the livery, calm as could be. HH HHHHHHHHHHHHHhe grimly picked up the reins and turned it over to the livery man. The look he gave the man kept him from saying anything, but Johnny knew the man was laughing behind his back as he stalked off.

The tack he'd bought with the horse had trouble of its own. He'd repaired the stirrup that fell of that first ride, and then reinforced the other one so it wouldn't do the same thing. Leather began to lift off the saddle tree underneath, and so he spent a few days learning how to glue and reform the shape of the seat. At least he could figure out how to fix the saddle. It would be worth more than the damn horse when it was done.

Once the saddle was glued he had to let it dry for a couple more days. The whole time he was working with his gear, the horse was lazing in the livery corral, tail swishing at flies. Bored, frustrated, and generally irritable, Johnny had a few drinks too many one afternoon and decided to ride the damn horse bareback, just for something to do.

The chestnut rolled its eyes at him when he fumbled putting the bridle on. Pulling the horse behind the livery so no one would see him without a saddle, Johnny swung up and settled on the broad back. He turned the horse down an alley and headed out of town.

As expected, there was no trouble at first. They got further down the road and Johnny waited for the usual wandering.

It never came. The horse walked calmly down the road like a good pony. If Johnny reined it to one side or the other, the horse responded, but it never offered to stop or buck. Johnny clucked and the horse stepped out into bumpy jog. Damn! Johnny started to slide off; he grabbed the mane, pulled back on the reins, and the horse stopped.

Okay, here we go! Expecting a fight Johnny tightened his knees to get a better grip before he spurred the horse. But the horse moved right out in a confident walk. Johnny stopped him again, and kneed him again, and the same thing happened.

He wasn't that drunk. What was going on?

Johnny always figured you just got up on a horse and it knew what you wanted it to do, but now he began to realize that his horse responded to signals. Signals from him. The clearer the signals, the better the horse performed. Riding bareback put him right where he needed to be to make this horse go, and he didn't have to spur it or whip it.

Hell, if he thought about it, he didn't rightly do so well when someone barked orders at him, either.

He began riding bareback for a while every day, studying his actions and the horse's response. When he was bareback the horse never stopped unless he told it to. Bareback, he didn't need spurs to keep it going. It reined quicker, got going faster, and stopped cleaner, and the more he rode, the more he felt he was part of the horse. God, it got to be fun, tearing across the countryside like a wild Indian. The more fun he had, the more he liked that horse.

He started calling it Amigo in his head. He spent more time with it on the ground, too. He brushed it and cleaned its feet out, and before long it looked as content and happy as Johnny felt. The only down side was that when he cleaned and brushed the horse to a shine, he was more likely to slip right off. But his muscles got stronger and his balance improved, and he really liked the look of that chestnut colored coat gleaming in the sun.

It was a shame to ruin this new horse by tacking it up, but he knew he had to. This time though, as he mounted, he felt how his weight affected the horse. He worked not to let his butt fall into the saddle heavy, but instead held his weight in his thighs to settle more lightly. He could tell his horse appreciated that.

He spend the first day just walking, turning, figuring out how to do the same things he did bareback but with a saddle. And wouldn't you know it? This was a nice horse.

It wasn't that he didn't have trouble with it occasionally after that, usually when he was feeling cocky about something. The more he rode, the kinder he got to the horse, and the kinder the horse got to him.

And for the rest of his life, Johnny Madrid thanked that old plug for teaching his hot headed self how to ride.


End file.
